I have white hairs.

I was sitting playing idly with my hair last night as I spoke with Tienchi in the Glass Tavern. I plucked them a little more sharply than I intended to and came out with a small bundle of them wrapped around my finger. Three strands were white amongst the copper.

I do not know how to feel about this. Even allowing most liberally for mistakes in my arithmetic, there is no way I can be more than two or three and twenty years of age, and I suspect I am younger.

I am most terribly afraid that one day I shall look in a mirror or a still pool and see my mother looking out at me. A woman bowed under with the sufferings of her life, of inconstant or dead men, pain and dearth all writ clear on her features. Do I look so old already? The pools in the forest are murky and I find I fear to go and ask Mistress Jaymes in the Glass Tavern for a look in her mirror...

Is it foolish of me to wish for youth a little longer, for beauty at all? To see my own relfection in a man's eyes and know that he sees something beautiful? Am I simply afraid that I have become pitiful, that the solicitation I see in others these days is simply that; pity?

Yes, it is foolish. I determine my own fate. I cannot be made pitiful or pathetic by others, but only by myself. And I will not be. No matter how others see me. I will not be.

On a rather kess self-pitying note, as I mentioned before I had an interesting conversation with Tienchi in the Glass Tavern. The more I meet the girl the more i like her, though I think I must make it a resolution not to apologise to her any more. When I do, she apologises to me, and the entire conversation becomes a cart hitting a bump in the road. I should rather we had gone on talking rather than allowed ourselves to be derailed thus. She sought my advice on whether the fire sipirts in the cavenrs below Dundee could be considered demonic. It seems she makes it a point of principle not to kill anything that is neither demonic nor undead. I was intrigued. I would have asked her straight why if I did not think there might be something she would rather not speak of behind it. It was refreshing to meet one who did not seem to wish to hack their way through all of Valorn;s fauna. At the same time, I do not know if it will last. I recall my own scruples when it came to hunting in the caves of the sea dwellers, but when I heard of the children they had supposedly stolen in raids on the costal villages and branishor, I found I could do so. I still regret slaying the centaurs, but not keeping the mountain paths open for caravans and wanderers, and I know I never slew on of those free horse-people who was not actively trying to kill me first. And the ogres? I never did find any conclusive trace of those boys in the village, but I did find human skulls, narrow rib bones like a child's, and weapons too small for ogre hands in their armoury. Do I regret that I slew those who barred my way out? Honestly, as befots a Cleric, I can say I do not. I would do it again.

I am...confused. Not an uncommon state of mind for me, but nonetheless that does not soften the sting of my thoughts churning once more.

I was cleaning out some of the general clutter that seems to have accumulated while my sight was lost, and tucked in a pile of books I had thrust away into a corner was... well, was a book, written neatly in Xanthias's hand. He must have left it the night he spent with me. I suppose it is a fair mercy he did not leave it on the pillow with his note to me, else I might have destroyed it as wantonly as I did that.

The book...the book was his journal. A collection of things written here and there, not near as dense nor as frequent, and nor, I fear, as foolishly as I commit my own thoughts to these unguarded pages. But nonetheless, they were his thoughts. At first I debated on whether to read them at all. It wa spossible he had simply let the book fall on his way out and it had become mised up with my possessions. He had been so weary when he came to me...it seemed I could feel his fatigue seeping through me from the touch of his hands. But I let my traitorous eyes fall on the last page, and found that my name was written simply on it, with "Heart" below. I took this as a sign that he had indeed left it for me. Perhaps he knew how I would treat the other missive. It still hurts me more deeply than I can say that he left without even waking me, when we was so weary and worn. I cannot help but think the sight of me blinded and lost in darkness horrified him beyond belief. Not only physically. I was never beautiful, and I had grown thinner and scrawnier in my blindness, but nothing irrperairable now that I am sound again. I already see the improvements in myself wrought by the simple fact of health. I recall Mylor's words, harsh but spoken, I think, from genuine belief, that he thought Xanthias decieved himself as to his feelings and intentions towards me. The book is, of course, nothing conclusive. I try to bring my mind purely to bear on this, as my heart and I...speak rarely and when we do the results seem oftimes disastrous for us both, and for others around us. Xan certainly writes of strong feelings for me. They were clearly written at different times and in different inks. He did not write the book all at once to decieve me deliberately, that much is clear. As for the rest... they sound genuine to me, as objectively as I can read them. He seems to write from such a foriegn land to me. As I read, I became reminded of the gulf between us in experience and class once more. He writes most guardedly of things that pertain to his family and the life he once led. Perhaps such a life trains you to keep your words guarded in case they fall into the hands of others. Perhaps he simply wrote as a reminder to evoke the memories once more within himself. And I lack the experience to fill them in... How much I lack it. How little I know. In this life, I make sense, and I fulfil a function. Even blind, I did so, though it near broke me. In that kind of life...I make no sense and fulfil no function. As ever, when I think of him I feel dizzy, as if I have lost the solid footing of myself. Is Mylor right? Does he decieve himself in thinking we could ever truly be together?

Once again, emotion makes me foolish and uncertain. Once more I lose my footing in myself. It is not so uncommon, as I said. I was a fool the other night. A new aquaintance recently has been Tienchi, a very friendly and likeable young woman with strong opinions and a streak of stubborness that I can see certain people comparing to my own. She did remind me a little of myself, lacking all the dead and scarred bits of myself that I cannot discard. that being so, we have already clashed once or twice. I can truly see where she is coming from. She, it seems, is another that Mylor has befriended, and it also seems that his despondant behaviour of late has not gone unntoiced. I chance-met both of them on the road betwixt Dundee and Milltown, and Tienchi manouvered us into Cerbie's, where Waterfall was on shift. They, it seemed, wished to confrint him about his behaviour. I...well, I admit to acting most foolishly there. I was angry. It seemed to me that they had acted to decieve my friend. The Gods know he has a right to his own personal life, which I will not write of in these pages. It seemed also to make me complicit. Anger kindled in me suddenly. it wa sonly later that I realised that it reminded me painfully of those women who would come round to my mother's house when I was but little more than a babe. A babe with no father, and her belly swelling with another child already. They spoke in voices of false commisseration, and urged her to tell them all, to mend her ways, sweetened their gossip-mongering with the hint of maybe forcing the man of the village who had so "disgraced" her to wed her... The last of those came after the babe was born still, and never drew breath. She insinuated that maybe it was a mercy it was so, and my mother... well, she turned her cold and empty eyes on her, and the woman seemed to shrink, and fled. And none of them ever crossed her threshold again.

Recalling that, I know there was nothing of that in Tienchi and Waterfall's intent. I know they truly care for Mylor, and wanted to aid him. As did he himself. He near drove me to hitting him by his relaxed and jokey comments while I was spewing forth anger on his behalf. It was stupid of me. I know my friend can take care of himself, better than I could I am sure. Once again I let my emotions run off and do foolish things. I am glad that on cooler reflection I seemed to make it up with both Tienchi and Waterfall. Thye are good people with good hearts, and I would never forgive myself had old angers from the past severed me from them forever.

The writing here is as clear as in its earliest pages, flowing in a clear black ink straight and true across the page.

I... dear Gods, I hardly know how to write this. So long, I was in too much despair to wish to commit my black thoughts to paper, and then... then it seemed to be tempting fate to do so. Finally, I take my pen back in my hand. Finally, I can see this page stretching before me, waiting for my words.

Yes. See. I can see again. The Gods are merciful.

I had reached my lowest ebb. After a night in my bed, Xan had disappeared once again, leaving a note on the pillow I could not read and I felt suddenly and terribly reluctant to put to other eyes and other lips. Instead, I crumpled it in my fist in a sudden fit of rage that brought tears like acid to my eyes, and threw it into the fire. After this, I felt sure he had finally abandoned me. I burned his words, and the rage drained from me suddenly as it had come, leaving only emptiness. I...gave up. I felt sure that the Gods had judged me wanting and I was lost in the darkness forever.

I did not give up entirely. At the bottom of my despair I found a sudden reserve of strength, bitter and hard and somehow unwholesome, but it would not let me lie down and abandon Issy and myself. I gave up on the charity of the Temple and went back to my cottage with my daughter, and between us and with the intermittent help of Mylor, Fleur, Roana and a few others we made it habitable again. this dull and bitter anger drove me, and then finally ceased to ache, leaving only the dullness behind. But I stood up again. I made a life for Issy and myself again. I even arranged with Shamson that he teach her to read and count, as my little one's quick mind made me sure that she would take to them, and I could no longer teach her myself. Aside from taking her to these lessons, I barely left the confines of my home and herb garden for some weeks, sustaining myself this way and seeing few. One day, however, I felt the old restlessness stir in me again, and, after I dropped Issy off at the gates of The Holy Temple, I found my steps leading me towards Dundee Inn . There I found Mylor. He greeted me warmly but there was an air of despondancy about him. He misses Llye... He loves Llye... still...

Being in such similar moods, we soon fell away from the cheery atnosphere of the inn and I ended up with his guiding hand on my arm through the dark forest. He led me by paths seldom trodden until we came to the old abandoned forest retreat of the Champions of the Red Road. We sat, for a long time, with spatterings of conversations, but mainly in what I suppose could be described as a companionable silence, if such a thing could be had when both participants are in some way despondant and despairing. Between us, tangible in that silence was...whatever it is that has made us friends so long, I suppose. Trust. The restless feeling continued in me, building up like an itch in my eyes until, somehow... I felt moved to remove the bandages. There had been only darkness behind them so long...when I turmed my face to the warmth coming through the treetops, the light struck into my eyes with such pain that I near screamed and hid my head in my hands. A note of hope, unfamilar and undisguised, came suddenly into Mylor's voice as he inquired what was wrong. The pain receded as he brought me a cloth soaked in cool water from the brook to lay over them. And at the sound of it in his voice suddenly hope rose in me once more, and by all the Gods that pain was worse than the blinding one of my eyes. I had grown used to despair. Despair was safe. Hope... Suddenly I was so full of it I was dizzy, and terrified. I clutched at his hand on my shoulder as if to prevent myself from falling away. He was oddly gentle as he asked me what I feared, reminded me that I had only to gain. I confessed...I confessed my fear of the pain,even should my sight return to me with it, though not...not entirely why. His disappointment with me seemed clear in his voice. "You could cover your eyes again to shield them from
that." "I could." "You're supposed to rail against that." His disappointment hurt me, more than I thought mere emotion still could. It struck me that without Xan... without Xan...aside from Issy, Mylor was the closest person to me in all of this land. My oldest friend. The last person I cared about disapointing. And even as I recognised it, I was glad. Without anyone's disapointment to care for, with only my own pride to prevent me falling al the way... that seemed lonlier than I could care to be, even for the sake of avoiding pain.

And in recognising that, I could speak. I let out some of my anger and confusion about Xan. How abandoned I felt, in my darkness. How I felt I could not blame him, though, for not saddling himself with a blind woman, or worse yet, a woman... a woman like me. How the shadow of what had happened to me seemed ever to have lain between us. How I hated myself for not overcoming it.

Mylor was silent a long while before he spoke. He seemed...reticent to speak. But I asked him. I felt I had heard my own thoughts too long. I needed to know...something from another. Soemthing that was not simply the echos of thoughts and more thoughts echoing around the labrynth of mine own head. He did as I asked, and spoke. "Okay. I think Xanthias was selfish and self-centered. He was used to women falling over him. You were different. He might have tricked himself into thinking he could stay with you forever. He loved you as much as was possible for him, but eventually he was too weak. He had to run away." He snorted, and I heard bitterness in his voice towards himself, as deep as there was in me. "I've stood in those shoes."

In it's own way, it was as thought a burden I did not know I had been carrying suddenly slipped from my shoulders. Mylor's words... I could not tell their truth. But even the thought that I may not have been entirely responsible for all the pain and anger in me now... it lifted a weight of a kind. Perhaps I had not driven him away. Perhaps if he had left me... the fault was in him, at least as much as in myself. Perhaps not. Mylor thought of himself and faithless, and he was the truest friend I ever had. Perhaps Xanthias also held faith with me, somewhere. And if not...perhaps I was not incapable of being loved. Perhaps it was his own scars as much as mine that drove him away from me.

I told Mylor as much. That I saw no faithlessness in him. That he was the truest friend I ever knew. And I thought I heard the bitterness in his voice ease just a little as he suddenly urged me to consider the Altar in the Temple of Light. The place where the God Darren had laid the blindness on me as a charge, and that I had avoided ever since. "Isn't it worth going there, just in case it matters?" and I told him...somehow I told him "I...do not want the God to see...to see how I have failed him...". There was surpise in his voice as he answered me "I don't see how you've failed in anything." And I heard my own voice answer "With all the gifts the Gods have given me, all the powers I possess...I am no more able to keep people from dying than I was when I was a healer with herbs and a knife. People keep dying...dying forever, cold in the earth. Cold as Mar is. All these gifts...and still I fail. I cannot even keep myself safe. I... still do not even truly know how this happened to me. I could have died and left Issy alone..."

Even as I spoke I knew the foolishness of my own words. Too much... foolishness and pride, of a kind. It was too much to take credit for. Had I really held myself guilty for all the deaths that passed through my hands? That passed through the world? Some part of me let go, in that moment, and I let Mylor take my arm and lead me to the Temple, where i could kneeel before the altar and beg forgiveness. The forgiveness that I, however foolishly, felt I needed. in that Holy Light, I opened my eyes, and in that moment of supreme pain, I asked the Gods to forgive me. For everything.

I felt myself begin to fall, and suddenly I was in a place that seemed all of light. I saw the shapes of the Gods, and the greater Light that shone through all of them, behind all things. Even as I stood there I knew I was forgiven. I felt all the compassion in the universe wash through me like a great tide. Though it was Darren that spoke to me, his voice seemed to be that of all the Gods, male and female in one. The voice told me how afraid I was of pain, and why. That I endured pain, great pain, terrible pain, willingly, and yet needlessly. Because I would not let myself feel it. Because as soon as I was confronted with it, I shut the door in my head that I had learned under torture by the demons. The one that said "This pain is not mine, It is happeneng to someone else, very far away." "You are afraid, child." the voice told me. "You are afraid that as you broke once under pain and screamed for your love, screamed for Mar, until it broke his heart, that you cannot trust yourself under pain again. You shut this pain away from yourself, by the herbs you took to deaden it, by shutting yourself away form your own feelings. Without the pain, there can be no healing. You had to come back to us, to feel the pain willingly."

The memory returned to me aslo, finally, of how I had lost my sight. I had been under the Wall, wanderign, lost in paths under the darkness. From a crack, a fresh crack deep in that darkness had come... a thing. Out of darkness it came, and it's very presence seemed to deaden the world, so that the light from my hammer and amulet and even my Ring seemed dimmed almost to nothingness. I fought it, alone, in the dark, and it hissed forth a vapour that seemed to make my head spin and slow my reactions, deaden my limbs like despair. But I fought it, Hewed at the hideous thing's limbs and soft underbelly. And finally, a great stinger came out a me. I almost fell victim to it, and if I had, I think I should never have left. It would ahve dragged me to its lair in the deep places of the world. I avoided it, but luck or good fortune...almost. As the stinger struck at me, I hewed the thing's head from its neck. Like a last revenge, the stinger than had been about to drive into my flesh sprayed everywhere as the thing screamed it's hideous dying scream... into my eyes. I breathed some in, and was sick. I crawled, lost in the bowels of the Wall, desperate for water, as the pain in my eyes mounted. Finally I came to the desert... and it already began to blur before my eyes. I was by then too sick to stand straight... I tottered and wandered far, no longer knowing where I was going...until eventually I stumbled into Ildara, and she healed me as best she could. Saved my life, most likely, judging by the delirium that was on me by that time...

All that passed for me in the instant between the Light hitting my eyes and the impact as I hit the sandy floor beneath the altar. I fainted from the pain and the shock...and I came round some time later looking up at Mylor's face, blurry and painful and true. My friend, who convinced me to do what I had to do, and thus gave me back my sight.